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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22532353">A Conversation with Tsukishima Kei</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeNiceToNerds/pseuds/BeNiceToNerds'>BeNiceToNerds</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(gonna make that an actual tag gang), Canon Compliant, Epistolary, M/M, Post-Canon, Pro Volleyball Player Bokuto Koutarou, Pro Volleyball Player Hinata Shouyou, Pro Volleyball Player Kageyama Tobio, Pro Volleyball Player Tsukishima Kei, So is Bokuto, and basically all the karasuno team + a few others are mentioned too, but like no one except for Tsukki actually shows up, but no active homophobia, ish, so hinata is mentioned a couple times, the world is heteronormative and most people are straight, to manga chapter 382 but probably won't veer too much off after that, well it's compliant to the letter of the manga anyway</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:40:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,166</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22532353</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeNiceToNerds/pseuds/BeNiceToNerds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years ago, Tsukishima Kei made history by becoming the first openly LGBT athlete in the Japanese Volleyball League when he was selected for the then-second division team Sendai Frogs. Today, as the Frogs celebrate a third consecutive second division win and their upcoming long-awaited first division debut, Pink Star News catches up with the famously private twenty-four year old athlete for an exclusive chat about life, love and, of course, volleyball.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>322</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Haikyuu Fanfiction Archive, Jazz's Favs</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Conversation with Tsukishima Kei</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Four years ago, Tsukishima Kei made history by becoming the first openly LGBT athlete in the Japanese Volleyball League when he was selected for the then-second division team Sendai Frogs. Today, as the Frogs celebrate a third consecutive second division win and their upcoming long-awaited first division debut, </em>Pink Star News<em> catches up with the famously private twenty-four year old athlete for an exclusive chat about life, love and, of course, volleyball.</em></p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Well, I suppose I should start by congratulating you and the team on your recent victory. It was an excellent game, with several nail-biting moments. How did it feel, knowing that on the line was not only the championship but also your chance to move up to the first division?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Thanks very much. To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about anything beyond what we needed to do to win the current game. The Lions are a very formidable team, and we couldn’t afford to let our guard down. It was only really once that final ball fell that it hit any of us, I think.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Well, you’re all certainly aware now. It’s been a while since the divisions were stirred up like this in Japanese Volleyball – how do you and the team feel about that?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Well, technically we’re only on probation for a year. We won’t really be in division one permanently until we’ve proven we can keep up in the league.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: That’s not an answer, Tsukishima-san.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: …Overwhelmed, I suppose. As I said, even though we knew it was a possibility going in, with our results in the V-league and the Kurowashiki the past few years, I don’t think it really sunk in until it actually happened.</p>
<p>But then maybe that’s just me. I know some of the older players, like Yaku-san and Ihara-san, have been aiming to take the team to first division for a while…</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: The way you’re saying that makes you sound pretty pessimistic.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tskuishima: *laughs* Yeah, I suppose so. I’d prefer to call myself a realist – but then my life keeps proving me wrong! I never even expected to play professionally at all, so I was definitely content with the Frogs and second division.</p>
<p>I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t eager about the chance to play the first division teams more regularly than the Kurowashiki, though. And it’s nice to get a chance to be the underdogs again.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: There’s a lot there I want us to get back to in a second! But, firstly, what teams in division one are you most excited to play?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Well, as a team, I think we’re all most eager to face off against the Green Rockets and Goshiki Tsutomu.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: That’s right – he was a Frog for a long time, wasn’t he?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: That’s right. He was already on the team when I joined, but he got scouted by the Rockets just over two years ago, after our first second division victory. I can’t say I blame him, and I fully supported him at the time - but I know a lot of the guys want to show him what he’s missing.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: On a more personal level, you and Goshiki-san go way back, don’t you?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: I guess you could say that. We were on rival teams in high school, and attended a couple of Miyagi Prefecture training camps together. I wouldn’t say we were especially close back then – but then, he was one of the people who was most outspoken about having me on the team and as a starter when I first joined, in the face of all the controversy. Maybe because of how often we played in high school; he already knew my skills, and that was pretty important given the atmosphere at the time. So for that I guess I owe him a lot.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Wow, again a lot to unpack there, and I’ll definitely get back to a lot of what you’ve said –</strong>
</p>
<p>Tuskishima: Great.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Are you being sarcastic?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Of course not. I would never.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: But anyway, I want to ask you one more question about your team’s upcoming move to first division. You said that the <em>team</em> was most looking forward to playing Goshiki Tsumotu and the Green Rockets – do you have any other teams in particular you’re especially eager to play?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: *smirks* The Black Jackals and the Adlers, of course.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: I guess that goes without saying, for people who know a bit about your past. You have a lot of history with some of the key players of both those teams, correct?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: I went to high school with Kageyama Tobio from the Adlers and Hinata Shoyou from the Black Jackals, yes. And I’ve been… friends, I suppose, with Bokuto-san from the Jackals since my first year of high school.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: You don’t sound convinced.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tuskishima: He has a way of sneaking up on your affections while you’re not paying attention.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Speaking of Bokuto Koutarou, he’s recently – as of a week ago – come out of the closet himself, and talked openly about his current long-term relationship. When people asked him why now, he said, and I quote: ‘I can’t let Tsukki beat me to first in division one’. He was talking about you, correct?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Sadly, yes.</p>
<p>*pauses*</p>
<p>I guess one of the reasons I decided to be openly gay in volleyball was to make space for other players to come out themselves, so I can’t really complain that finally that’s happening, even if Bokuto-san has been – well, very Bokuto-san about the whole thing.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Did you know?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: That Bokuto-san is gay?</p>
<p>… yes. I’ve known since high school.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: In one of the first – and only - interviews you gave after you joined the Frogs you said that you were sure there must be more LGBT players in the Japanese V-league, but that they were all quiet about their sexualities. Were you thinking about Bokuto-san then?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Well, he was a closeted athlete I definitely knew about. But no, I wasn’t just thinking about him when I said that. I still stand by what I said then – I’m sure there are more of us out there, just keeping their heads down. And I definitely don’t blame them for keeping quiet about it. It’s just something I wasn’t willing to do myself.</p>
<p><strong>PSN:</strong> <strong>Let’s go deeper into that. What made you decide to come out publicly in the way you did? And did you realise what an impact it would have?</strong></p>
<p>Tsukishima: Yes and no.</p>
<p>By the time I decided to join the Frogs I definitely realised what a big deal it would be. But beforehand… I didn’t really ‘come out’, you know. I never made a big announcement about my sexuality. I just stopped deflecting questions, and that was only a moderately big deal when I was just another college volleyball player – but then I was chosen for the Frogs, and it really blew up.</p>
<p>I had to sit down with Tadashi – my boyfriend – beforehand and make sure he would be okay with it. I think that’s the biggest thing about coming out as a public figure – it suddenly throws our families into the spotlight, too. And they might not have asked for that.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Yeah. Obviously he was supportive?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Tadashi has always been braver than me, in a lot of ways. He’s definitely my better half… He encouraged me to go for it. To be honest, I don’t know if I would have started with the Frogs, without him.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: You said ‘yes and no’, but you’ve only really talked about the ‘no’ so far. In what ways did you realise beforehand? I think you’ve mentioned this in previous interviews, but for anyone who’s new to your story?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Like you said, I’m pretty sure I’ve touched on this before, but if you insist on the whole speech…</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: I do.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: So I went to a school called Karasuno for high school. No particular reason for it, it was just the closest school to where I lived… Before I got there, Karasuno had been briefly famous for being a powerhouse, and it was particularly known for one player. His name was Udai Tenma, but everyone knew him as the original ‘Little Giant’. He was tiny, but he played on the same level as guys my height. By the time I started at Karasuno, though, all that was well in the past. Udai had quit volleyball in college, and Karasuno was nothing. People used to call us the ‘clipped wing crows’.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Now Karasuno is famous in its own right as a current powerhouse, though – and a lot of that credit goes to you.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: I think people sometimes give our generation a bit too much credit.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: They did call the four players in your year ‘Karasuno’s miracle generation’ after your third consecutive Nationals placement – that must have meant something?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: You know, I always hated that nickname. There are six players on a volleyball court; seven members on the starting roster, and more critical members on the bench. We just happened to be the four who started in the year everything finally came together.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN:…</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Look, I’m not saying that Tadashi’s serves and receives, Hinata’s speed and persistence, Kageyama’s serves and scarily accurate tosses – and my blocking, I guess – I’m not saying they weren’t important, but they wouldn’t have gone anywhere without our senpais. Nishinoya-san’s receives. Asahi-san and Tanaka-san’s spiking power. Ennoshita-san and Sawamura-san and Sugawara-san’s steady leadership – and the support of our coaches and managers.</p>
<p>And then we would have been one-championship wonders without our talented kouhais coming up in the next years. Yaotome-kun’s receiving, the Tokita cousins’ spikes, Yukihara-kun stepping up as backup setter…</p>
<p>It’s not a coincidence that Karasuno still regularly travel to Nationals, long after my year has graduated.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: You’ve definitely made your point. Going back to the previous question, though – what made you decide to come out publically?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: So as I said, before I started Karasuno used to be famous mostly for producing a player called the Little Giant. The same year as me a guy called Hinata Shoyou started at Karasuno. He’s much more famous than I am, now, so I’m sure you all know of him as the guy who came back from playing Beach in Rio and took Japan by storm a couple of years ago. Hinata is tiny, too, and he only started playing because of the Little Giant. Same for Hoshiumi Korai – he’s taller than Hinata, but he’s not even 175 cm and he’s one of the Adlers’ key players. Same for Nakashima Takeru, who was captain of my college volleyball team. And there are lots more of them – small players, who saw someone like them playing, and thought ‘I could do that too’.</p>
<p>For years I never really got it. I’m pretty tall –</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: That’s an understatement.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: - and so I never really saw why Hinata idolised the Little Giant so much.</p>
<p>But then I started college, and after a year or so my boyfriend – who’d been playing volleyball casually in a neighbourhood league – switched to playing with the much smaller Sendai Rainbow League. I didn’t even know that queer sports teams were a thing!</p>
<p>I still didn’t really get it, but Tadashi loved it there, and eventually he convinced me to come along with him to a game evening. And – look, some of the players were terrible, they’d only just started – but some of them were really good. Like, almost as good as I was, and I was one of the starting players on one of the better college teams in Miyagi.</p>
<p>So I asked one of those players why he wasn’t playing more seriously. And he said – and this is the bit that’s always stuck with me: ‘I would, and I’d love to, but volleyball isn’t for people like us.’</p>
<p>So I said: ‘well, I’m gay, and I play seriously’ – I was only on my college team at the time, of course, and not really planning to go pro.</p>
<p>And he said ‘sure, but does anyone know you’re gay?’</p>
<p>And, well – you know the phases of being in the closet? You can be ‘out’ and not out at the same time, you know – you don’t ever lie, but you deflect, and you don’t volunteer anything – that’s kind of where I was, at the time. It was where I’d been since I figured my stuff out during high school, except for with my family and a few close friends. The thing is, I wasn’t even deliberately staying closeted, it’s just that I didn’t think my private life was any of anyone else’s business.</p>
<p>But we talked a bit more, over a couple of different sessions, and that’s when I realised that there was kind of this unspoken idea that to be gay in sports you needed to stay closeted. And, sure, there’s some truth to that – it was a pretty big scandal when the Frogs decided to hire me, if you remember? And there have definitely been a few unkind teammates and fans over the years – but it’s a self-perpetuating prophecy.</p>
<p>People need visible role models. They need to see people like them doing something to realise they can too.</p>
<p>And I’ve always hated bullies, and I realised that by staying silent I was helping them thrive – so I stopped staying silent.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: You’ve mentioned that your public coming out was pretty gradual. What did that look like?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Lots of little things. Like, my teammates were teasing me about not being interested in any of the girls they talked about, and said ‘what, you gay or something’ – which was pretty common, and usually I’d just roll my eyes at them, but then one day I just said ‘yes, do you have a problem?’</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: And did they have a problem?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: *laughs* Well I was a starting player since my first year, and one of the tallest guys on the team, so if they did they were smart enough to make sure I never found out about it. I mean, there were some comments they thought were behind my back, but no one was brave enough to take me on directly.</p>
<p>And Nakashima-san and Miura-sensei, our coach, were very supportive, once they found out about it. I owe a lot to both of them.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: But there’s a pretty big gap between that and coming out publically.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: It was just a variation of the same thing, really. My university had a pretty big team. Once I started being more active about volunteering information suddenly rumours started floating around. It took a while, but eventually the reporters started asking me if the rumours were true – which they were, of course.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: And what happened after that?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Not that much, to be honest. I had to go home and text my old high school teammates and some of our other friends– most of them already knew about me and Tadashi, but we’d never really explicitly told them, and we thought it would be better for them to officially ‘find out’ from us. It made a little bit of a splash – a paragraph at the bottom of one of the back pages of <em>Volleyball Monthly</em>, a short article on your website – but I was only a university middle blocker just starting my second year.</p>
<p>Like I said, it only really kicked off when I was scouted for the Frogs, and it became clear that I was going to be the first athlete hired for the V-league – in any division – who was openly queer. That was… eye opening.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: What was the hardest part?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: I’ve always been a pretty private person. Having so many people suddenly so intensely interested in my personal life – that was a real challenge. There’s a reason I don’t do that many interviews.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Well, we’re certainly flattered you’ve chosen to do one with us!</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: …</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Do you have any regrets? If you could go back, would you do it again?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Yes.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: …</strong>
</p>
<p>I mean, yes, I’d do it again. In a heartbeat.</p>
<p>If you’d told me ten years ago that this is where I would be now, I would have laughed in your face. But now that I’m here, I wouldn’t change anything.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: You’ve mentioned a couple of times now that you never expected to be where you are now. What did you expect of your life when you were younger?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: I don’t know that I expected anything, really. In some ways I was a very angry teenager – or, well, pointedly apathetic, I guess might be more accurate? I played volleyball because it was what I’d always done, and I was good at it.</p>
<p>*laughs* And because Tadashi did, I guess.</p>
<p>I never really expected to fall in love – with him, or with the sport. I certainly never expected either of them to go anywhere.</p>
<p>But, well, I’m certainly happy that they did.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: I want to ask you more about Yamaguchi Tadashi later –</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Great.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: But first – you said you weren’t in love with volleyball for a long time. What changed that?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Well, Bokuto-san, actually - *laughs* yeah, I can see your face, I know how that sounds, and it’s not what you’re thinking. Our schools used to train together a lot, and what I was going to say was that he once said something that really stuck with me – that everyone has this one moment that makes volleyball click for them.</p>
<p>Mine was in the Miyagi Prefecture Spring Tournament finals, my first year of high school.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: When your team first won against the reigning champions, Shiratorizawa Academy, right? If I recall correctly, that’s when the dialogue around Karasuno High School started talking about their ‘first year trio’ as a force to be reckoned with.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Yeah.</p>
<p>Funnily enough, I was so angry at myself afterwards – everyone had said that it was my blocks that had won the team the game, and in some ways they were probably right – but all I could think of was the look on Ushiwaka Wakatoshi’s face when the ball bounced off my hands onto their side of the court. I wanted to feel that again. I hadn’t felt that enough, that game.</p>
<p>Like I said, I was a bit of a melodramatic teenager.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Well, you’ll certainly have more chances to face off against Ushiwaka-san outside of the Kurowashiki All-Japan Tournament, now that the Frogs are in the same division as the Adlers.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: That’s true. It was never really about <em>him</em>, though – it could have been any strong player. He just happened to be the one in Miyagi at the same time as me.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: So after that, is that when you knew you’d end up in the V-league?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Oh, god, no. I was hooked on volleyball, and I knew I wanted to keep playing – but I couldn’t imagine throwing caution to the wind and dedicating my whole life to it like some of my teammates wanted to. So I found a university that had a good volleyball team and a good biology program. I was happy playing college volleyball. I never really considered playing professionally until the Frogs approached me.</p>
<p>To be honest, I don’t know if I would have if it had been any other team – I had a life in Sendai already.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Let’s hear a bit about that other life in Sendai. You work at a museum there, correct?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Yes, I’m an assistant collections manager at the Sendai City Museum. Our museum focusses on the history of the area from early man up to the present day. I mostly work in the very early history section, but I help out anywhere that I’m needed.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: How did that happen? You said you studied biology at university, right?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Right. Mostly animal biology, zoology, ecology. I’ve always been fascinated by palaeontology, so I took some geology courses as well. There was an optional course on very early human evolution in the second semester of my second year that I took on a whim but really struck me, and on the recommendation of the professor I started taking some anthropology courses as well. One thing lead to another, and I ended up doing a summer internship at the museum my final year of university – and that eventually lead into the work I do now.</p>
<p>Humans are just animals, really. I find it fascinating to try and understand how our very early society might have evolved, and piece together bits of local history from the scraps that have managed to survive.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: How has your boss taken the news of your team’s rise to first division?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: She was happy for me, but told me that I still have no excuse to slack off. We’re currently in the middle of figuring out what the Frogs’ new training schedule is going to look like, and in turn what that’s going to do to my work schedule.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: That seems like a lot to juggle!</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: I guess it is. Like I said, though, I’m happy where I am now.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: We’re certainly happy to hear that! And speaking of happiness, let’s move on from your work life to your private life.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Great.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: You’ve been together with your boyfriend for over six years now, correct?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Probably closer to seven than six, now. We started properly dating in our final year of high school.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: But you’ve known each other for a lot longer than that, right?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Yes. We were childhood friends.</p>
<p>…For a long time, when we were kids, it was kind of me and Tadashi against the world.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Is it still like that?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Of course not. Well, I suppose to a certain extent, yes, as in any partnership, but we’re both – much more well-rounded people, I guess? We have more than just each other, and that’s important, I think.</p>
<p>To be honest, I don’t think we would have ever gotten together if we’d still been that same level of co-dependent.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: What do you mean?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: …</p>
<p>When I was younger I was deliberately pretty standoffish – scared, though I wouldn’t admit it, of commitment, of vulnerability, of failure. If I didn’t admit I wanted something, if I didn’t put my all into it, then it didn’t matter if I lost it in the end.</p>
<p>Back when we were like that, all I had was Tadashi. Of course I couldn’t risk doing anything to lose him.</p>
<p>I mean, at the time I don’t <em>think</em> there was anything romantic going on there anyway – we were still in middle school and I was very much in denial about my sexuality – but if that mindset had stayed with me through high school obviously nothing would have happened. I mean it’s not completely gone – and I think everyone has those kind of fears, to an extent – but I don’t let my fear control me anymore. And I have more than one relationship I value in my life, and so does Tadashi.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Heavy stuff. Well, anyway, how did you two meet?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: We started playing in the same youth volleyball club.</p>
<p>…Wow, I sound like a total volleyball idiot, don’t I? Anyway, we met at volleyball, but we quickly realised we had a lot more than that in common, and we bonded pretty fast after that.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: And how did two of you get together?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: In the middle of our last year of high school, like I said.</p>
<p>… Look, it wasn’t that dramatic. We just realised that our feelings were mutual. In some ways I suppose it was inevitable.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Had either of you dated anyone before that?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Not seriously. Tadashi had a girlfriend for a few months our second year of high school, and I’d had a brief thing with an older guy from another school. Obviously neither of those worked out, but I’m still friends with that guy, and I think Tadashi still occasionally talks to his ex, as well.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Do you ever feel like you’ve missed out on anything, settling down so young?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: No. Should I?</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: … </strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: I love him. I definitely wouldn’t be the person I am today without him, and there’s no one else I’d rather spend the rest of my life with.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: A truly heartfelt sentiment from a player famous for his reservation.</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Don’t get used to it.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: And on that note, I think we’re done here. Is there anything else you’d like to tell the readers before we finish up?</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Not really.</p>
<p>
  <strong>PSN: Alright then! Thank you very much for talking to us, Tsukishima-san, and know that everyone here at Pink Star News, and many of our readers, will be following your future career with interest!</strong>
</p>
<p>Tsukishima: Thank you for having me.</p>
<p>
  <em>The new season of the Japanese Volleyball League begins in August.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>*pops into new(ish) fandom, dumps a fic, promptly (probably) vanishes off the face of the internet again for several years*</p>
<p>Haikyuu! is an interesting one for me, because even though sports anime are kind of my not-so-guilty pleasure/comfort food TV and have been for ages, if you point-blank asked me what my favourite one was Haikyuu! probably wouldn’t even make the top three (in no particular order: the first two seasons of Yowamushi Pedal are ridiculous and endearing, Chihayafuru is a masterpiece and Actually! Takes! It’s! Female! Characters! And! Lead! Seriously!, Run with the Wind is painfully relatable in a couple of different ways, Ping Pong is a beautiful deconstruction of the entire genre, Yuri! on Ice was/is legitimately groundbreaking queer representation and also just really fun…) – but, on the other hand, Haikyuu! is also legitimately the only sports anime that I’ve rewatched at least twice, SO. </p>
<p>This fic was brought to you by an impulse decision to start reading the manga while bored and with excess data in an airport at the start of a VERY long trip, and the subsequent binging of it all over the course of several long and blurred-together days. Also, I suppose, by my own current experience of being self-reflective and in my mid-20s and observing myself and my old friends and seeing what’s changed, and what hasn’t, and how we’ve all mellowed out and grown and possibly become a bit more self-aware, but are still recognisably the same person.</p>
<p>I hope I did an almost ten years older Kei justice.</p>
<p>Also, idk, I have very strong feelings how in the manga (and presumably the anime, if/when it gets that far) all of the commentators start off by referring to Karsauno’s ‘first year duo’ but by Nationals it’s the ‘first year trio’ (still sometimes the ‘freak twins’, but hey, Tsukki gets his own commentary too). The cover art for the new season has that exact energy too and idk, I just really like Tsukishima’s growth from background ish character/antagonist to tertiary protagonist on the same level as the main duo and a fascinating foil for Hinata. So as a result, first division – slower than Kageyama and Hinata, and for his own reasons and on his own unique path, but eventually playing on their level again in the end.</p>
<p>And I’m not sure how Gay Icon Tsukki came into my head, but once I thought of it, it was obvious. On a pretentious fiction nerd level it’s yet another example of his being a foil to Hinata, but also I think it fits a lot with his own character arc. Also, all my faves are queer, I don’t make the rules.</p>
<p>Somewhat inspired by ‘don’t change the color of your hair’ by speakingincode and ‘Sunkissed’ by marks for two different and equally excellent getting-together-in-third-year tsukki/yama fics, which tipped my unrepentantly multi-shipping self into writing this as tsukki/yama rather than a different Tsukishima ship and very, very tangentially by ‘crossfire’ by kitebasu which does the ‘sports anime protagonists grow up and deal with being gay and in the spotlight’ thing in much more detail, a very different direction, and infinitely better than this.</p>
<p>So anyway, have this weird experimental fic, I hope it works for someone who isn’t me!</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26899225">A Conversation with Tsukishima Kei [podfic]</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/esbielle/pseuds/esbielle">esbielle</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/pxssnelke/pseuds/lysandyra">lysandyra (pxssnelke)</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightmew/pseuds/midnightmew-podfics">midnightmew-podfics (midnightmew)</a>
    </li>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30176550">Infinite Love</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vi_olet11/pseuds/Vi_olet11">Vi_olet11</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div></div></div>
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